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Mozzarella Stuffed Meatloaf

Flavorful ground beef stuffed with ooey gooey mozzarella cheese. This Mozzarella Stuffed Meatloaf is sure to become an instant family favorite!

This recipe is a classic Italian-style meatloaf, stuffed with fresh mozzarella cheese. Cutting into the loaf and watching that cheese ooze out will totally make your mouth water. My 6 year old went into zombie mode, eyes fixated on dinner, saying “me hungry! me hungry!” Too bad for him, he had to wait for a photo shoot. But not you!

The glaze is sweet and a bit tangy with garlic creating a beautiful complimentary pairing with the Italian-spiced loaf. I’m telling you, the mozzarella in the middle makes all the difference. It may very well put you in zombie mode too!

Many people have asked if you can add different kind of cheeses in the middle. Of course you can! But I do prefer slices of fresh mozzarella cheese (rather than the loaf kind). It produces the most ooey gooey results. You can always adjust it to work with what you have though! You may also be interested in my recipe for Not Your Momma’s Meatloaf. So good!

Watch the video to see exactly how I make this, plus get more ticks and trips for cooking. You can also subscribe to my YouTube Channel where there’s hundreds of restaurant quality recipes in cooking show style format to help you get in the kitchen.

Divide meat in half. Shape one half of the meat into the bottom half of the loaf and place in prepared pan. Place mozzarella slices down the center, leaving ½ inch around the ends and sides. Shape remaining half of meat as the top half of the loaf, sealing the edges. This is a free-form loaf so it doesn't need to be perfect.

In a small mixing bowl whisk together ketchup, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, garlic, salt, and cayenne pepper. Pour half of this mixture over the meatloaf, reserving the remaining half for later.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes, remove from oven and pour the remaining sauce over the loaf.Increase temperature to 400 degrees and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

I'm trying this recipe tonight, for my husband and I. Meatloaf in the oven right now, I had him try the sauce and he liked it, can't wait to try the actual meatloaf! Thank you for this recipe, I have a feeling it will be a repeat recipe in our home.

Technically almost anything can be made in a crockpot, but that doesn’t mean it should be. Meatloaf is tricky because it uses ground beef. Ground beef has a lot of fat and grease and the meat just sits there in it in the crockpot and it doesn’t render properly. You CAN and it will cook, but I recommend using the oven for this.

You can ball up around 2 inch balls of tin foil. About 4-6 2inch balls should do. Place the preshaped meat loaf on top of the tinfoil balls placed in the bottom of the Crock-Pot. That should allow you to cook it in the Crock-Pot. Keeping in mind, the meat loaf will not brownie form a thin crust surrounding the meat loaf. Due to having the lid on top of the Crock-Pot. See Crock-Pot manual cooking suggestions to adjust time and settings per ounces/pounds of meat used. Hope that helps. Take care and God Bless!

You can tear up four pieces of fresh bread into small bits and mix it in with the meatloaf that will help to absorb some of the grease is it and make the inside of the meatloaf a little more juicy and and allow the outside to Brown I have a meatloaf pan it’s a bread pan with a rack in the bottom this leaves about an inch of space for the grease to drip down away from the meatloaf as it Cooks and if you don’t like the ketchup topping the grease makes a good gravy just add the cayenne pepper and other ingredients to making the gravy into the grease and cornstarch

I just finished my first mozzarella meatloaf, and old my goodness , it is wonderful. My husband don’t like meatloaf, he said they are always dry. But he just finished eating this one and he loves it. For Louisiana girl who don’t use recipes we use a pinch of this or that. It came out most excellent.

I made this meatloaf on November 14th, best meatloaf I ever made, very juicy-not dry-wouldn’t change anything . I just wanted to know if I use 93% instead of 85%. Would the meat be dry, since there going to be less fat?

Made this meatloaf recipe for my husband tonight. We both enjoyed it very much. Next time I’ll skip the brown sugar in the glaze since I found it a bit too sweet. Otherwise, it’s a definite do over. Just curious though… why no onion or garlic in the meat mixture? Just preference? Onion and garlic goes into everything I make. Thanks for the recipe.

Curious on the nutritional information on this, I’m diabetic so I need to eat low carb and besides for the bread crumbs this seems like it would be a good option! Are the bread crumbs required or optional?

Bread crumbs help hold it together. I eat low carb and when I make meat loaf I put pork rinds in the food processor and grind them up. They have zero carbs and the meat loaf tastes the same as if you used bread crumbs

Made this tonight, and it was very good. BUT A FEW SUGGESTIONS to improve it:

1. I added a beaten egg to the meat mixture to make it firmer — that worked well.

2. If I make it again, I will add a ½ cup or so of finely diced onion to the meat for flavor and texture.

3. The sauce is too sweet and there’s way too much of it; if I make it again, I will reduce the brown sugar to half, and reduce the amount of sauce by half (meaning the sugar should be ¼ of what’s called for, IMHO).

Made this for my family of 7 tonight. We were super tired of Thanksgiving left overs. I had to convert measurements to accommodate 3 1/2 pounds of meat. The sauce is so amazing. It would be great on types of meat. It’s in the oven right now can’t with til it’s done. Thank you for sharing.

I’m trying this tonight. Wish me luck, I’m a vegetarian and won’t be able to taste it. I’m putting 100% faith in you and your recipe. So far I’m I haven’t made a bad meal yet, that anyone has admitted to me at least. I’ll keep you updated. 💐

This is the best tasting Meatloaf in the history of Meatloaf. Now and forever this is the recipe I will be using for Meatloaf Night. I did’t have ketchup so I jazzed up some tomato sauce as a substitute, and it was fine.

This meatloaf was AWESOME! Only used 1/2 brown sugar though. Also I used shredded mozzarella and I think that was a mistake. Couldn’t get enough cheese in there. Next time I will make sure to use the fresh.

I loved this recipe but the last recommendation to increase the heat to 400 for the last 15 minutes ended up burning the bottom. Next time I will just add more glase and increase cook time but keep it at 350.

I’m making this for dinner in a few days and I want to add bacon to it. I don’t cook much and don’t know my way around the kitchen very well, so I don’t know if I should pre cook the bacon, put it in the middle, on top etc.

I am a guy, in my 30’s and I rarely cook anything, ever. I saw this on a family members Facebook last week and it looked so easy I tried it and I love it! Making it again now. Like I said I don’t cook but I am curious how fresh pepper jack would taste… Or if it would melt properly… Anyway love this, thank you for not over complicating it! You rock!! I’m now looking up my next home cooked meal! ❤️🍞😋

I have a two piece meat loaf pan that allows the grease to drain. Will this work as well as the 9×13 pan? Also can you add bacon ends. The above post had a great idea with the bacon bits but I have fresh bacon ends.

I changed the recipe around a bit because I didn’t have some of the ingredients/didn’t like them. For some reason the meatloaf was falling apart, but I also used two pounds of ground beef with no egg so that might be why and it seemed to be more cheese than meat. The meat still tasted amazing and I’m coming back to this recipe just for that.

Delicious! I made this tonight with ground turkey. It was my first time making meatloaf, but my husband and I loved it. I can’t wait to have the leftovers tomorrow for lunch. I didn’t have Worcestershire sauce, so I used a little soy sauce and hot sauce. I also subbed apple cider vinegar for the red wine vinegar. Great recipe, and you can tweak it however you like!

Oh, goodness. That. Was. Amazing. I added an egg to bind the meatloaf a little more. Probably didn’t need it, but I did. Used the bread trick to soak up the grease AFTER it was cooked. Genius idea. Thank you! The recipe was doubled (all except the glaze) & I cooked it for a full hour before turning the oven up to 400 w/ the re-glaze. It turned out so, SO great. Paired it w/ Semilina bread & a squash, mushroom, & onion stir fry. Amazing dinner. Thanks for making me the hero tonight! ❤

Finally got to try this meatloaf! I didn’t have brown sugar, but since several people had commented that the sauce was too sweet, I decided to proceed without it. I also only used 3/4 c ketchup and adjusted the rest of the ingredients and there was still plenty of sauce, even for someone like me who likes their meatloaf extra saucy. The sauce turned out pretty good, but I felt like there was something missing – so perhaps it needed at least some of the sugar? The meatloaf itself tasted okay. I used parsley but left out the oregano and basil, as I didn’t want it to taste too similar to Italian meatballs. The only thing I didn’t like at all was that it tasted too salty. I would cut the salt in half next time or perhaps eliminate it altogether since the worcestershire sauce is kinda salty on its own. The cheese was definitely the highlight of this dish. I would love to try this meatloaf again with the brown sugar, less salt, and even more cheese. Thanks for sharing this recipe with us!

I love this recipe! Thanks for sharing. Going to make two loaves later today to bring one for a friend who had surgery. Any suggestions for baking? Will one on top rack and one on the bottom work? Will I need a longer cooking time? Any tips would be appreciated.

This was so delicious!Meatloaf was never my favorite – I could take it or leave it – but this recipe looked so good that I had to try it, and I am so glad I did! The cheese was an excellent addition, but I also really loved the sauce!

I’ve never been a big fan of meatloaf but I made this recipe once before and it was soooo good. My fiance loved it! I wan to make again but I don’t have any milk and no way to get to the store at this time. Can canned milk be used or can I omit the milk all together? Does it change the taste in any way.

I never liked my mom’s meatloaf… then I found this and your “Not Your Momma’s Meatloaf” .. GAME CHANGERS. Love the fresh mozz – I also made your cinnamon rolls yesterday, so good!!! Thank you for making me look good! 🙂

Very sweet, I would add a little more alt and pepper and minus the brown sugar to give it a more savory taste. I underestimated the pan size, don’t worry about using a 9×13 pan like i did, the sauce sticks and everything. the mozzerella poured out a little bit but i beieve that’s because we didn’t pinch the meat tight enough. or something. It’s was still cheesy though. Overrall the ketchup topping tasted alot like manwich sauce due to the sweetness so take that as you like.

I personally love the recipe with a little salt and pepper added. Easy meatloaf recipe!

I don’t add the brown sugar. The first time I made it, it was overly sweet for my taste and any chance I get to cut calories, I will. The second time I made it, I used ketchup, but not a full cup. This has MORE than enough sugar to offset the TBSP of vinegar. Husband enjoys it verra much!

I always make a 4.5 lb meatloaf, and my family devours it within two days. I can’t wait to try your version, as it’s very different from mine. What I’d like to know is since I make mine 4.5 pounds I have seen you say that the spices need to be multiplied by 4, but what about the breadcrumbs? Should I also multiply those by 4? That seems like an awful lot.

YUMMY!!! I used ground turkey but otherwise followed the recipe exactly and this was DELISH!!. This is personal preference but we felt the BBQ topping wasn’t needed.. it wasn’t bad at all but the meat tastes so good on its own that the topping just wasnt needed so I’ll omit that the next time I make this but I loved the cheese in the middle and the taste of the meatloaf was so good I didn’t need to use ketchup for flavor. Thank you! This was a huge hit and I’m adding it to my regular recipe book!

Oftentimes, grocery stores put it in the deli section with other blocks of cheese (not like your regular cheddar cheese blocks). You can always ask where to find the fresh mozzarella. It will be sold in an 8 oz package and be labeled as such so you won’t need to measure it out. Just slice it with a sharp knife.

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